This invention lies in the field of fuel burning for heat supply. More particularly, it concerns the design of a burner and fuel system which can be used either with gaseous or liquid fuels.
Because of the restricted supplies of gaseous fuels which are typically in the natural gas category, it is at times necessary to burn liquid fuels as replacements for the normally used gaseous fuels, where fuel burning is required in the operation of industries, generally, but particularly, in the chemical and petroleum industries, where all functions of production result from the application of heat in some manner.
Such application of heat is typically carried out in process heaters of many shapes and forms, in which the delicacy and intimate control with which heat is applied, is at times quite critical. Gaseous fuels lend themselves well to critical firing. Thus, heaters are typically and preferentially gas fired. In view of increasing gas fuel shortage, this leads to problems of fuels firing which are serious, because of the quite different characteristics of gas firing versus liquid fuel firing.
Many process heaters built during the time of ample gaseous fuel supplies are equipped with burners for gaseous fuel firing only. Alternative firing with typical liquid fuels, demand burners which are of the combination gas and oil type, which are well-known in the industry. Such alteration in fuel firing capability requires removal of the gas-only burners and replacement of them with combination gas-and-oil burners. This expedient is expensive and, due to time for burner change, it results in intolerable loss of critical product production.